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Maïa
Based on regular roundtrips between Paris and Moscow, this video recounts the amazing career of this strong-tempered performer who was long maintained in home custody by the KGB, and her meetings with Maurice Béjart and Roland Petit.
Is it her autobiography (I, Maya Plisetskaya, Moscow, 1994, English translation, Yale University Press, 2001; French translation, Gallimard, Paris, 1995) that made Dominique Delouche want to dedicate a film to this exceptional dancer?
Constructed on frequent comings and goings between Paris and Moscow, this document traces the extraordinary career of a dancer with a fiery temperament (born in 1925) who was long held under house arrest by the KGB, and her encounters with Maurice Béjart and Roland Petit.
Dominique Delouche weaves interviews from the present and images from archives to understand what forged Maya Plisetskaya’s will of iron.
From the dramatic events of her childhood – the arrest of her father declared enemy of the people and shot in 1937, then that of her mother – through to her interpretation, unique and copied time and again throughout the world, of the Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake), where emotion blends into her gestural technique, this portrait highlights all the nuances of an extremely endearing personality, even in her excessiveness and coquetry!
In no particular order, she evokes her love for the Bolshoi where she danced for 56 years, Russian poetry… and her husband Rodion Shchedrin, composer at the Bolshoi. Finally, we see her transmitting her role in Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake) in high-heeled shoes, repeating each step without a moment’s hesitation. Simply phenomenal!
Source : Fabienne Arvers
